Understanding Operational Costs
The Operational Costs import enables you to track business expenses that aren't directly tied to individual orders or marketing activity. These are the fixed and recurring costs of running your operation — warehouse rent, staff salaries, software subscriptions, and similar overheads.
By importing operational costs, you gain a comprehensive view of profitability beyond contribution margin, enabling you to understand your true business performance.
When to Use an Operational Costs Import
Use this import to track recurring or one-off business expenses that need to be reflected in your profitability reporting. Common use cases include:
Warehouse costs such as rent, utilities, or storage fees
Staff costs including salaries and wages for warehouse or operations teams
Software subscriptions such as ERP, inventory management, or eCommerce platform fees
Insurance for stock, buildings, or operations
Equipment costs such as packaging machinery or warehouse equipment
Professional services such as accounting, legal, or consulting fees
Other overheads not captured elsewhere
How Costs Are Applied
Operational costs are associated with a specific Store and Warehouse combination. The CSV template is pre-populated with all your available store/warehouse combinations based on your order data.
This means operational costs are not allocated to individual orders or products — they appear as a separate line in your profitability reporting alongside order-level metrics.
How to Manually Add Operational Costs:
Navigate to the Custom Data Import tab under ‘Connectors’ on the left-hand side navigation bar.
Select ‘Operational Costs’.
Fill out the table provided with the following details:
Start Date (optional): When this cost begins applying (yyyy-mm-dd). If left blank, the cost applies from the start of your data history (up to 3 years).
End Date (optional): When this cost stops applying (yyyy-mm-dd). If left blank, the cost applies up to the current date.
Period (required): Frequency of the costs. See Period options below.
Label (optional): A free-text description of the cost (e.g. "Warehouse Rent", "Staff Salaries"). Used for your own reference.
Currency (required): Select the currency of the cost. Costs are automatically converted to your reporting currency.
Store (pre-populated, read-only): The store these costs apply to. Pre-populated from your connected stores.
Store URL (pre-populated, read-only): The URL of the store. Used to match the cost to the correct store.
Warehouse (pre-populated, read-only): The warehouse this cost is associated with. Pre-populated from your connected warehouse data.
Cost Amount (required): Input the cost amount (e.g. if a period of 'monthly' was selected, this will be the monthly amount to you). Enter as a positive number.
Repeat for additional costs and select ‘Submit Data’.
Your data will sync overnight and appear in your report.
Using CSV for Bulk Uploads:
Download the CSV template from the Operational Costs page. The template includes rows for each store/warehouse combination with example values pre-populated. Fill in your data offline, delete all rows you don't need, and upload by dragging and dropping the completed file onto the editor.
Period Options
The Period field controls how your cost is applied over time:
Daily: Cost is applied every day within the date range
Example: 10.00 daily = 10.00 per day
Weekly: Cost is applied every 7 days, starting from the Start Date
Example: 100.00 weekly = 100.00 every 7 days
Monthly: Cost is applied on the same day each month, starting from Start Date
Example: 500.00 monthly starting Jan 15 = 500.00 on the 15th of each month
Annually: Cost is applied once per year on the anniversary of the Start Date
Example: 6000.00 annually starting Jan 1 = 6000.00 on Jan 1 each year
Once-off: Total cost is divided evenly across every day in the date range
Example: 3000.00 once-off over 30 days = 100.00 per day
Managing Your Imports
To remove operational costs, locate the file under My Imported Data in the custom data import tab and select the delete button.